A different set of 'star-crossed' Shakespearean lovers

Published 5:00 pm, Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Katie Wieland with Oliver Lehne in rehearsal for the Shakespeare on the Sound production of ìAllís Well That Ends Wellî running through June 28 in Pinkney Park in the Rowayton section of Norwalk.

Katie Wieland with Oliver Lehne in rehearsal for the Shakespeare on the Sound production of ìAllís Well That Ends Wellî running through June 28 in Pinkney Park in the Rowayton section of Norwalk.

Photo: Contributed Photo

A different set of 'star-crossed' Shakespearean lovers

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"All's Well That Ends Well" isn't high up on the list of Shakespeare's greatest hits.

Almost everyone has seen a production of "Romeo and Juliet" or "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at some point in their theatergoing lives, but "AWTEW" is rarely performed by the state's summer outdoor companies.

Norwalk's Shakespeare on the Sound is changing that with a new production running through Sunday, June 28.

Director Mary Robinson thinks audiences will share her love for the play.

"The characters are so wonderfully drawn and so rich and complicated. It's a relationship play that Shakespeare wrote at the top of his game, right around the time of `Hamlet,' " she said during a recent rehearsal break.

The play's heroine, Helena, is in love with Bertram, but faces that timeless trauma of realizing that he is just not that into her.

Katie Wieland, who is playing Helena, is described by Robinson as "the ideal Shakespeare heroine. She combines strength and vulnerability and has great depth. She also has a natural way with Shakespeare's language."

The director cast the two leading roles younger than might be standard in a "AWTEW" production to heighten the romantic dilemma at the center of the story.

"The tricky thing with Helena is the question: Why does she keep pursuing this man? I think casting young makes it really believable," she said.

With Shakespeare, in particular, you want performers who embody their characters so that the playwright's sometimes complicated plotting becomes lucid, she said.

This is the first time the veteran director has staged Shakespeare outdoors, which she believes adds another layer to his plays.

"There's something really special about seeing a play -- and listening to the verse -- under the stars," Robinson said.

"(Stratford) was such a special place and they used to pack that theater with 1,000 people at every show. When the theater closed, it left a real hole in the community, and now these smaller companies have been trying to fill that hole," she said.

Clarity is essential in Shakespeare and Robinson said she has called on "a terrific text coach" who spent the first 10 days of rehearsal going over the script with the actors.

"We've trimmed it a bit, too, down to two-and-a-half hours," the director said. "The goal is to make everything very clear."